


let's be alone together

by easyprey



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF, Sugar Pine 7 RPF
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love, parker takes pity on him and then some, steven's bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 03:43:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15721293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easyprey/pseuds/easyprey
Summary: “You know,” Parker says, adjusting on the concrete to be more comfortable, facing towards Steven. “After I —came back, I realized it wasn’t Sami Jo I was in love with.”





	let's be alone together

**Author's Note:**

> set during the season 2 finale. unbeta'd/mostly unedited/written in an hour because i couldn't kept thinking about them being mutually depressed about cib, and then bonding (and then some) over it.
> 
> rated m mostly for mentions of death and suicidal thoughts, and one instance of steven's inappropriate thoughts. 
> 
> title from alone together by fall out boy.

What happens is even after he has his heart-to-heart with Cib, gets things set straight and ironed out and the knot of anxiety roped around his lungs that tightens when he thinks about the company starts to loosen little by little, Steven finds himself actually feeling _worse_.

Not nearly as bad as he did — he isn’t sure he’ll ever feel that awful again, standing on that bridge, looking down at the ground below. At least he hopes to god he won’t. Instead it’s something more like he had a quick split-second of relief somewhere between Cib saying _love you_ and their hug ending, and then the rope started winding all over again for new reasons, this time around his heart.

And, oh, look at that. It only feels like it’s tightening when he sees Cib sitting wrapped around Sami Jo.

Go figure.

Steven tries for most of the party to shake himself out of it, because come the fuck _on_ , that's so _weak_ , the last thing he needs is to have another breakdown at his own Christmas party. Try as he might, though, he can’t help the way his teeth grind and his fingers clench around the cup he’s holding at the sight of them together. The cup's the shitty red plastic ones like they're in a movie about college; he wishes it were glass so it would shatter, make his hands bleed, that familiar feeling of _cause worse pain to lessen current pain_ taking over his mind.

Nope, no, he’s not doing this here.

It’s not fair. He's well aware it isn't, not to him or Cib or Sami Jo — especially not her. Steven actually does like her, for what it’s worth. He's pretty sure it's impossible to hate her, actually, because she's sort of sunshine incarnate, and besides his feelings have long moved past whatever it was he used to feel — possession for someone he never actually possessed.

Steven makes a point to never be rude to her, because she’s genuinely a wonderful person, and he isn't jealous anymore, and if he can’t have Cib as — well. Steven doesn’t like to think about the rest of that sentence.

He wants Cib to stay his friend. That’s all. There's nothing like jealousy anymore, but there used to be. It used to make him feel hot all over and sick, but now that he knows nothing is going to happen, he just feels empty about it.

So Steven stays in one spot for much of the party, playing the part of a wallflower without actually being shy. He's still smiling at all the right moments and halfheartedly interacting with everyone else when they approach him, and only occasionally does he look over to where Sami Jo’s holding mistletoe over Cib.

If he was in this situation any other time, he’d feel almost soul-crushingly alone. 

But he’s not.

No, he's not alone at all, because across the room from him, Parker’s giving Cib the exact same look.

He’s careful about it, Steven notices as he watches. Parker's timed it out — he looks over once every two minutes, and then immediately back down at his drink, turning his attention back to whoever’s speaking to him. Nowhere near as obvious as Steven’s sure he’s being, but then, Parker’s had the time to practice.

Steven moves body-disconnected-from-brain, sets his drink down before he's drifting over towards where Parker’s perched on the edge of the couch. Steven taps him on the shoulder, and Parker must not expect it because he damn near jumps out of his skin. Once he realizes who he is, Parker smiles easily, and he opens his mouth to greet him but Steven cuts him off. 

“I need to talk to you,” Steven rushes out, raising his voice over the blare of the music. Parker nods, turning to finish his conversation with Jamie, who just waves him off good-naturedly before waving Steven’s way. Steven thinks vaguely that all of his friends are too nice for him. He lifts up a hand in a poor imitation of a wave, and then he’s pulling Parker towards the glass sliding door.

“It’s cold out here,” Parker says once they're outside, as he settles on the concrete, leaning back against the door. “Like, too cold.”

“It’s California, and it’s like eighty degrees,” Steven huffs, sitting down next to him. It _is_ cold on the concrete, though; Steven pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them.

They sit for a while in silence, listening to the muffled thumping of the music from inside, the lights casting multicolored shadows across the concrete and the lawn. Steven finds himself opening his mouth and then closing it at least a half a dozen times; he isn't _good_ at this, he doesn't know how to talk about much of anything, least of all Cib.

“So." Parker says, voice pleasant and unassuming like so much of him is.

Steven suddenly really, _really_ doesn’t want to have this conversation. But he's going fucking crazy, and Parker's probably the only person in the world who knows exactly what he's going through, exactly what it feels like, so it's now or never if Steven wants to keep the little grasp he has left on his sanity.

“Um,” he begins eloquently, a hand coming up to his mouth so he can bite at his nails — a recent nervous tic he doesn’t know how to get rid of. “It’s Cib.”

“Cib,” Parker’s voice is steady but resigned. His hands drop to his lap, going to mess with a loose thread on his jeans; a similar nervous habit. “Yeah. I figured this was coming.”

Another silence, this one more tense than the last. There’s nothing to talk about, not really, and Steven knows that, but — it’s just he’s felt so fucking _alone_ for he doesn't even know how long, and knowing Parker’s gone through the same thing is a morbid comfort, not quite schadenfreude but close.

“I don’t know what else to say,” Steven admits. He can’t fucking stand this. “I don’t know how to get past him, or something. It’s so fucking stupid, Parker — I don’t know how to be friends with him, except we’ve never been anything but that.”

Parker shoots him a look, one that screams that he’s familiar with this kind of thing, and instead of being comforting like he thought it would be, it just makes Steven’s skin itch. Great. “Not like it helps, but I never figured out how. I’d be fine for a few months at a time as long as I kept my distance, and then —“

“And then every time you saw him your heart felt like it was going to fucking yank itself out of your chest and go crawling into a pit of fire?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Parker nods, and the cheap imitation of a laugh that escapes him is heartwrenchingly sad.

A silence falls over them that Steven finds bizarrely comfortable. He doesn’t feel like crying, not really (not anymore) but his breathing is ragged in a way that usually comes with tears. It’s so quiet Parker must hear him trying to steady it, damn near gasping with the effort of getting enough air in his lungs, but if Parker notices it, he doesn’t say anything. Steven’s grateful.

Parker looks behind him, and Steven doesn't have to look to know he's gazing back to where Cib’s sitting with Sami Jo in his lap.

Steven doesn’t want to see it, so he keeps his eyes on Parker, whose face twists up, the perfect picture of misery.

“You know,” Parker says, looking away, adjusting on the concrete to be more comfortable, facing towards Steven. He presses his lips together, exhaling soundly, like he’s trying to decide if he wants to keep talking. “After I — came back, I realized it wasn’t Sami Jo I was in love with.”

Oh.

That fucking _hurts._

Steven’s never stopped feeling somewhat responsible for Cib killing Parker — an honest mistake, maybe, but a deadly one all the same.

It hurts watching Cib be with someone else, of course, but _god_ , Steven can’t imagine what it must feel like to get brutally murdered by the person you love, only to come back and have to deal with the repercussions of realizing you were in love in the first place.

“It broke him for a while,” Steven says like an apology, like _I’m sorry you’ve suffered so much at the cost of being our friend_ , like _I still remember the way he looked at your body bleeding out next to him_.

Parker just shrugs, making a noise like he's considering that concept, Cib broken over him for once instead of vice-versa. His fingers reach up to brush the scar at his temple where the edge of the table did him in. “Water under the bridge, I guess. Or, uh, blood bleached out of hardwood floor?”

Steven laughs despite himself, pinching the bridge of his nose. He feels so terrible about it and doesn’t think he’ll ever find the words to express it. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s kinda funny,” Parker argues, stretching his legs out in front of him. He talks about his death so casually now, and it'd be weird if it didn't fill Steven with so much relief. “I’m the one who died, I get to think it’s funny.”

“Yeah,” Steven agrees. He’s feeling a little better now, more comfortable talking about this with Parker than he ever would’ve been with James or Autumn. Talking it out does help — of course it does, there’s a reason people go to therapy — but his chest still feels constricted. “Parker?”

“Hm?”

Steven rests his forehead on his knees, curling in on himself. He feels sick at the thought of someone knowing — fuck, _Cib_ doesn’t even know, but maybe it needs to be out there. “I was going to jump off of a bridge yesterday. I haven’t told anyone but you.”

Parker makes this awful sympathetic noise, and it strikes Steven how little he’s actually changed — all the terrible things that’ve happened to him and he’s still wonderful to a fault. Steven wishes so badly he was like that instead of this awful mess of panic and feelings flipped rightside-up then back again.

“ _Steve_ ,” Parker’s saying, and Steven won’t look at him, won’t lift his head up; he won’t admit to it but he’s trying to hide. He feels a hand rest on his back, warmer than it should be as it starts running up and down across the notches of his spine. “Was it about — was it because of him?”

Steven forgets to respond for a minute, lost in the warmth of Parker’s hand; he’s forgotten what it felt like to be comforted. He doesn’t say anything until Parker nudges him gently, brings him back to himself.

“Kinda. We had this fight — this fucking knock-down drag-out fight, screaming and throwing things, the whole nine fucking yards. James was trying to get a better job so he could leave, and Autumn was — Autumn, and I don’t know. I just ended up there,”

Parker keeps rubbing his back, small sweeps up and down, then across his shoulders. Steven’s shoulders are tense the way they have been for as long as he can remember, a network of knots across his back, and he can feel Parker stop just short of digging his fingers in to undo them with every go-around. “But you didn’t.”

Steven sighs. His throat clicks as he swallows. He’s already doing this, so fuck it; he continues. “I called Cib instead, because of course I did. I fucking — _god_ , Parker, he could’ve told me he _wanted_ me to die before he left after that fight and I still would’ve called him.”

“Yeah,” Parker murmurs, sounding thoughtful. A moment passes before he speaks again. “I know the feeling. For what it’s worth, I’m really glad you didn’t jump, man. I like you here.”

And, okay. That’s — a new feeling, something different entirely strung up in his ribcage, because even if he told Cib or James or whoever else, he doesn’t think he’d get to hear that from anybody but Parker.

The bowstring feeling across his heart feels — not gone, not by a longshot, but it’s breaking up now, no longer feeling so taut. Steven lifts his head up after a long while, eyes landing on Parker, whose hand rests unmoving on his shoulderblade.

“Can I,” Parker starts, hushed, and Steven knows what this is before he even leans in. Parker goes slow, as if to give him enough time to run if he wants to.

Steven doesn’t think he wants to, so he meets him halfway.

Parker’s lips are warm — and that’s confusing; isn’t he supposed to be technically undead, or whatever, he probably shouldn’t be this warm — and a little bit chapped. Something about kissing him strikes Steven as familiar, like he’s supposed to be doing this.

Parker’s nails trail across what little of Steven’s skin is exposed, making him shiver. Parker’s hand snakes up his neck to nudge under his baseball cap, knocking it to the ground without bravado. Steven’s breath stutters when Parker gets his hand tangled in his hair, and when he tugs gently, there’s a shudder running down his spine and a thought in his head like maybe he could stay here awhile.

Between the music blaring so loud they can feel it pulsing against the glass and the lights throwing colors all across them, between the concrete cold underneath him and Parker’s hand in his hair and mouth pressed just this side of too-gentle to his — Steven feels vaguely like he isn’t really there, everything feeling both _too much_ and _not quite enough_.

Parker pulls back first. Steven opens his eyes (and when did he even close them?), and there’s a red-blue glow glittering across Parker’s face. He looks like a damn deer in headlights.

“I’m so sorry, Steve,” Parker says, alarmed, scrambling back like he’s gotten burned. “Like, you just wanted to talk about Cib and then I totally took advantage of that and—“

“Parker.” Steven reaches out towards him, gets his hands on his shoulders to ground him. Steven’s just trying not to fucking laugh; Parker is goddamn absurd and even worse, he’s still talking.

“I promise I’m not drunk, just stupid, and—“

“For fuck's sake. _Parker_.”

Parker stops abruptly, still looking alarmed. He’s looking like he’s going to try and run again even as Steven rubs his shoulders and shushes him. He’s got all the body language of a cornered animal, like he's caged, and it’d be funny if it wasn’t so fucking frustrating.

Steven just — he doesn’t have time nor emotional capacity for this, because even if Parker isn’t drunk, he sure as fuck is ( _tipsy_ , his mind supplies helpfully). All he wants to do is not think about Cib or the party or anything but Parker’s mouth for the next five fucking minutes.

So he drags him back in.

Parker makes this little noise like he isn’t expecting it when Steven crushes their mouths back together, and maybe he’s going a little fast but it makes him grab at Parker’s hips, hard enough he's sure it'll leave bruises, leaning him back against the glass door to lean up over him. Even with the position, their kissing stays mostly chaste, very little more than just gentle presses of their mouths together.

It’s so much nicer than Steven expected. Parker kisses the exact way you’d expect from his personality, gentle and hesitant and almost infuriatingly sweet. Steven has an errant thought in the back of his head like _you could wreck him_ , but he shakes it away for the most part — that can always come later, if they get that far.

One of his hands moves to wrap around the back of Parker’s neck, holding him where he wants him, and Steven can feel his breath stop-start when he bites down on his lower lip just a little. There’s a solid few minutes where they sacrifice lungfuls of air in favor of kissing, Parker shyly biting Steven’s lips right back. When they finally do have to break for air, Steven rests a hand on Parker’s cheek and says mildly, “We should probably get back to the party.”

When Parker laughs this time, it’s whole-hearted and doesn’t sound so sad. There’s a flush filling out his cheeks, making them bright pink. Steven strokes across the color gently, and Parker’s leaning into the touch a little before he’s moving so Steven can unwind where they’re tangled together.

“You know that’s something someone says when they want to stop, that's just hurtful, you've wounded my dignity,” Parker replies; instead of accusatory he just sounds breathless and vaguely fond. “But yeah, we should, or they’re gonna think I died again.”

“Oh my god, it’s _not fucking funny_ ,” Steven huffs indignantly, but he still has to bite back another laugh because goddamnit, it _is_ sort of funny. Not that Parker's going to know that.

Instead of getting up and going back inside, though, they sit there again, looking out at nothing in particular. It’s finally starting to feel chilly even with the temperature and the time, night fully settled over the city. It feels good, makes Steven feel more alive than he has in a while.

Well. He supposes it’s not all the temperature.

Parker gets up first, stretching and yawning; of course alcohol makes him tired. After he works the ache out of his limbs, he holds his hand out, like an offering. Steven takes it. It takes a second for him to remember how standing works, his legs a little shaky from the rough concrete and the alcohol and the kissing. Once he's up and halfheartedly stretching so he stops feeling like a voodoo doll someone twisted in half (he really needs to stop sitting on concrete), he expects Parker to let go of his hand.

He doesn’t. 

Steven’s not sure he really wants him to, is the thing. He makes up his mind to not mention it if Parker doesn't.

“We’re gonna be okay, Steve,” Parker says quietly, turning to slide the door open. “Like, really — grand scheme of things? We’ll be fine.”

Steven doesn’t have anything to say to that; he doesn’t think it’s necessarily true, the whole _we all die eventually, some of us twice over_ nihilistic sort of thing, so he favors nodding his head resolutely and squeezing his hand instead. Parker grins at him, teeth bright under the blue Christmas lights. He squeezes back firmly, holding it a moment longer before he’s dropping it and stepping back into the apartment.

There’s nothing else to say. Not about Cib, about any of it. Nothing left for Steven to do but go back to the party and keep acting like things are normal, the way he’s been doing for a year. Nothing’s changed, not really — he and Parker will go back to feeling awful in equal turns about Cib, and Cib will continue being absolutely clueless, and the world will keep turning like it always does. But he knows he’s not losing his best friends, or his company, and maybe next time he wants to crawl out of his skin just because Cib looked at him a certain way, he can just call Parker instead.

Maybe Parker was right, and maybe they really will be alright in the grand scheme of all this.

Or maybe they won't be _alright_ , but they could be miserable together instead.

Steven steps back into the party. Nobody seems to have noticed they’ve been gone, least of all Cib and Sami Jo, which is admittedly a small blessing because he really doesn’t want to be questioned about this. He looks from them to James, getting no response. His eyes move to Mimi and Jamie, and then to everyone else, vision sweeping back and forth but looking for nothing in particular. Something in the way nobody bothers looking at him makes his skin crawl, makes him dig his nails into the palms of his hands.

Feeling dissatisfied, he looks to Parker, who’s already integrated himself seamlessly back into the party. His heart does a weird little flip he doesn't want to acknowledge when he sees Parker's already looking at him.

The second they lock eyes Parker smiles at him and nods, all solid reassurance, like _you’re supposed to be here _. The blush is still high on his cheekbones, though anybody else would blame it on the drinks he's had, and his mouth is a little bruised from kissing.__

__It might not fix anything — in fact it’ll probably make it all a lot worse — but he can’t stop himself thinking that yeah, being miserable suddenly doesn’t sound so bad, as long as it’s with Parker._ _

__Steven smiles back at him, making his way over to him._ _

__It doesn’t sound bad at all._ _

**Author's Note:**

> while writing this i realized i never include alyssa in these and i'm sorry alyssa i love you but it's harder to write gay shit if you're around (also you deserve better than steven) (just kidding i love them)
> 
> also i haven’t actually rewatched season 2 in a while so this was probs wildly inaccurate to the actual episode but hey what is fanfic for if not sometimes being wildly inaccurate


End file.
